When Grant Dalton sold the rights to Barcelona to host the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron’s (RNZYS’s) latest cup defence, he was attacked almost universally, including by me. Yet Dalton has been proven right about pretty much everything.
I still pine for an America’s Cup sailed in 12-metres, with no advertising even on the magnificent spinnakers, and with kids donating their pocket money to help buy KZ7 a gennaker.
But the 12-metre race in Barcelona, including KZ7, proved the old days weren’t quite as exciting as remembered. When New Zealanders fell in love with the cup in 1986/87, we forget it wasn’t on TV, but that the legendary Pete Montgomery brought it to life on what’s now NewstalkZB.
The cup only became a television spectacle thanks to the data-gathering and computer graphics systems developed by Sir Ian Taylor, onto whose boat I managed to talk myself for the final race in Barcelona.
Today’s America’s Cup couldn’t even happen without that technology. Were it to fail mid-race, no one would know where the course was and the race would need to be called off.
The race and overall event management are now as far away from Perth or San Diego as the AC75 foiling monohulls from the old 12-metres. A contest that was never purely a sport, but demanded a unique combination of excellence across design, raw grunt, sailing tactics, emotional intelligence and high finance now demands ever more money and advanced technology than when Sir Peter Blake wore his red socks.
Dalton both foresaw where the event was heading and imagined how it could go further. Having rescued Team New Zealand from the debacle of 2003, bounced back for a near-miss in Valencia in 2007, suffered the horror of San Francisco in 2013, taken the cup off Oracle’s Larry Ellison in 2017 and then successfully defended it twice, Dalton surpasses even Dennis Connor as the greatest figure in the cup’s 173-year history.
To be fair, Daniel Bernasconi’s 40-strong design and engineering team, as well as Peter Burling, Blair Tuke and the sailing crew also have something to do with it.
The magnitude of their achievements is underlined by the UK’s venerable Royal Yacht Squadron genuinely celebrating a British yacht racing in a cup match for the first time in 60 years and winning a point for the first time in 90 years.
Since Team New Zealand emerged in the mid-1980s, it has sailed in nine cup matches and won 41 cup races.
An unjustified belief in Kiwi exceptionalism, in foreign policy, economic reform, commerce, the arts and sport, is usually to our detriment, making New Zealanders believe that genuine global success is easy and even deserved. Team New Zealand is an exception to prove the rule.
There is an extraordinary humility about the team – even Dalton – based on its members being so genuinely exceptional that they alone understand just how difficult and improbable it is to consistently beat teams backed by the world’s wealthiest individuals and most advanced technology.
That wouldn’t have been possible this time without the rumoured €70 million ($125m) Dalton took off taxpayers of Barcelona, Catalonia and Spain to part-fund Team New Zealand in exchange for hosting rights.
Contrary to popular belief, Team New Zealand has been almost entirely privately funded. To keep the team together after the 2003 debacle, Trevor Mallard made $33.75m of taxpayers’ money available and $10m after the 2007 near miss, and Steven Joyce $5m in 2013. Those numbers are dwarfed by the $1 billion-plus raised from the private sector since Belgian businessman Marcel Falcher paid the RNZYS’s first entry fee in 1984.
Dalton has successfully turned Team New Zealand into a $100m-plus export industry. Originally the money was raised domestically and largely spent on challenges offshore. Dalton now raises it abroad and then spends the majority in New Zealand by basing the team in Auckland for most of the cup cycle.
No New Zealand Government or Auckland Council will ever again spend the hundreds of millions required for the infrastructure to host defences in Auckland, let alone a fee to the team. If Finance Minister Nicola Willis, Sports Minister Chris Bishop or Mayor Wayne Brown ever did, even the most fanatical cup enthusiasts should vote to kick them out.
The cup’s future is travelling from one venue to the next, each funding Team New Zealand’s next defence against the power of the likes of New York Yacht Club and the Royal Yacht Squadron and their nations’ most advanced technologies.
For long-time Team New Zealand fans, who saw hosting the defences as the prize, denial, anger, bargaining and depression precede acceptance. But risking another 2003-style debacle is unthinkable.
The plan, now, is that every two or three years, New Zealand will present itself in another of the world’s most exclusive sailing locations, in time zones that work for global audiences, to demonstrate overwhelming technological dominance against the world’s most scientifically advanced countries.
If they’re smart, the New Zealand Government and business community will follow the large group of Kiwi entrepreneurs who used Barcelona to advance their interests.
Taylor and his network were most prominent. Working with French giant Capgemini, expect the wind graphics Taylor’s Virtual Eye brought to life to appear in more sports, from Formula One to beach volleyball, as well as having commercial applications beyond sport.
Straker.AI was busy exploiting the message of Kiwi technological excellence to further develop its business with European partners. It already has an 80-strong team in Spain alone. Key players from Auckland’s robotics industry were busy forming business relationships with European customers.
Kiwi engineer Andy Cass was in Barcelona raising capital to further expand his Charge Made Good (CMG) technology and also pick up a top prize for best individual entrepreneur at the Global Innovation Management Institute’s 2024 innovation awards. His technology will eliminate fossil fuels from sailing vessels globally by providing skippers with data to adjust sails, course and boat speed to maximise their vessel’s battery recharging without compromising too much VMG (velocity made good).
These are people I bumped into without even meaning to while hanging around Barcelona as a lifelong Team New Zealand fan.
It would make sense for the likes of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, Business New Zealand or if necessary the Government to promote New Zealand technologies more formally at the next cup, whether in Barcelona, Valencia, Jeddah or whoever else has a spare $125m to fund the next Team New Zealand triumph.
